The Natural History of MS Symptoms

Based on the study “Natural History of MS Symptoms”, which appeared in the Fall 2013 issue of the International Journal of MS Care, this visualization shows how the symptoms of multiple sclerosis change over the course of a lifetime. As we explained in the article we published in November 2013, Ilya Kister, M.D., of the NYU Multiple Sclerosis Care Center, Department of Neurology, NYU School of Medicine, New York, NY, and colleagues used data from 25,728 patients in the NARCOMS Registry to develop a series of symptom severity charts in 11 domains commonly affected in MS.

This visualization translates the static graphics contained in the study into a dynamic and interactive bar chart. You may switch between "Multiple" and "Stacked" views, explore the different symptoms with the drop-down menu, and mouse over the bars to discover individual values.

Edit: This version has been updated with the results presented in the study "Disability in multiple sclerosis". It now includes a patient-reported measure of overall disability, based on the validated Patient-Determined Disease Steps (PDDS) instrument. The PDDS instrument can be seen on PubMed Central.